


The Princess and the Clown (on hold)

by JokeringCutio (Breakingthestandards)



Category: Joker (2019)
Genre: Charity Event, F/M, Obsession, Older Man/Younger Woman, Party Clown Arthur, Party Princess Reader, Sexual Themes, carnival the clown, modern day AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-01-23 17:51:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21324226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breakingthestandards/pseuds/JokeringCutio
Summary: You are a princess at a charity and Arthur is a clown. When you say something kind to him, he becomes obsessed with you.[ Modern Day AU, currently on hold (2020) ].
Relationships: Arthur Fleck/You, Joker/You
Comments: 14
Kudos: 328





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt fill getting out of hand: Prompt(sent a similar one to more people): You are a princess at a charity and Arthur is a clown.

You knew this charity event would be different than any other. You knew this, because today you’d be entertaining children who were ill, some even terminal, and making them smile was a real big challenge.

Your heart constricted in your chest at the sight of them. _Too young,_ you thought. _Too many._ Yet you forced a smile on your face and delicately waved your hand, as if you were truly happy to see them.

You _were_ happy. Though more than happy you felt privileged. Because you carried the important task of making these children forget, if just for an hour or two, about the world around them. And you’d give them your all.

With a gentle movement of your hands you lifted the layered skirts of your princes dress. Next to you, a girl you knew was actually called Chantal but who was dressed as Cinderella, let out an exasperated sigh through gritted teeth. “Mind if I stick to you?” She asked, her smile never faltering though. “You look the part. The other girls aren’t that great.”

You knew she was picky about who she wanted to work with. For this charity event, several girls had been asked to come and perform as princesses, and not all of them had accurate costumes or manners. You wondered if they were all up to play the part to be honest.

“All right.” The two of you mingled with the crowd. Gotham Hospital suddenly didn’t seem much like a hospital any longer, but rather like a fairground. With the large gardens around the hospital decorated with balloons and flags and with little stalls scattered about with toys and food.

The two of you found yourselves talking and laughing with the children and their parents, and soon you were forgetting how ill some of these children really were. It was just you and the kids, waving, bowing, doing small talk, asking them about their favourite characters, colours, favourite anything. You remained polite and kind whenever you bumped into any other characters, but Chantal was less than pleasant. She greeted them with a fake smile and sneered behind their backs once they had passed. The girl was starting to work on your nerves and so you decided to ignore her as much as the job allowed you to.

You were already on the job for about twenty minutes when suddenly, Chantal came to a halt and pointed at a group of people ahead. “Oh look, they brought in the clowns,” she said, her voice flat.

Your gaze followed hers as her eyes drifted to a single clown. A loner, by the looks of it. He was bending forward to tell a joke to a handful of children. His bright green hair, attached to a very obvious and cheap wig cap, wobbled. You heard Chantal’s voice, “I never found them funny.”

You took a swift glance at the group in the distance and then looked back at the single clown again. You silently agreed. Clowns had never really made you smile. But you weren’t going to tell that to Chantal. Instead, you shrugged and started to make your way over to a child who had just caught your eyes and was waving at you. “I’m sure they will bring a smile to many children’s faces,” you replied, and then you were on the job again.

An hour and a half later and the event was nearing its end. You and Chantal were walking around with four children on your hands each. They looked up at you with heart-eyes and seemed to have vouched to never let your hand go. Chantal relished in it, enjoying the way the children worship her. You, on the other hand, started to feel that familiar sadness again deep inside of you. That sadness that resurfaced at the realisation that these children will have to let you go at one point. And perhaps they would not be here a next time to hold hands again.

That was when you heard the choked laughter. Chantal heard it too. You could hear her coo to the kids on her hand to ignore the clown who was laughing. “Clowns aren’t as sophisticated as princesses anyway,” you heard her say.

You turned to look at the laughing clown to see it was that very same loner again. The one with the bright green hair. The one who was standing alone. The children standing around him seem to love him. They inch closer to him, some were tugging at his clothes like he was some kind of huge teddy. As you looked at him, you accidentally locked eyes with him, and that’s when your breathing stopped.

His eyes were the purest green. As green as the fake hairs on his head.

And now that he had caught you staring you felt obliged to say something to acknowledge his presence, to show you appreciate him working here, for these kids.

So that is what you say.

“The kids really love you.”

His eyes widened at your statement. Or was it a compliment? You didn’t even know yourself.

Chantal had walked on ahead of you. The children at your hand were tugging for you to come along and follow _Cinderella_ to one of the fake carriages that had been placed there as décor.

Knowing you couldn’t stay behind and that you had to fulfil the wishes of the kids, you quickly flashed the clown another apologetic smile. And, as good manners bid you to do, you did a very princess-like bow. Your dress swirled behind you when you turned to leave the man to do his job. But his laughter had died down and though you expected him to, he never replied.

___


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by that one scene of Arthur. You who paid attention all know what I mean.

The words kept haunting him, echoing inside his head. Even as he sat at home, watching the Murray Franklin show with his old and frail mother, he could still hear them.

_“The kids really love you.”_

Did they?

All he knew was that he loved making them smile, much like he liked to make anyone smile. But with kids it was different than with adults. A kids laugh was more genuine to him, more carefree. More like he wished his own laughter would be. There was just something so pure and innocent at seeing a child laugh. It made him feel like he was special, in a good way.

But oh, how those five little words suddenly meant the world to him.

_“The kids really love you.”_

Every time he heard them repeat inside his mind he heard them in your voice. That same angelic voice that had shaken him to the core when he had first heard it. He had looked up at you, had seen the smile you had given him, had known it had been a _genuine_ one.

He had seen your friend – at least he assumed she was. In her blue dress with her pretty blonde hair – Arthur was unaware at this point that she had been wearing a wig, pretty much like you had. That girl had seemed pretty, certainly worth the one-time fantasy of stroking himself, if she hadn’t had such a mean demeanour to her. The way she had looked at him, sneered at him, like he was less. And perhaps he was less than her, but at the very least he wasn’t deaf. His bout of nervous laughter had not come out of nothing, but had been a result of the unending commentary of the girl in blue who had said clowns weren’t funny. She had tried to lead the kids away from him.

But then you had been there as well. And you had stood your ground. You had said they made a lot of children smile. That he made a lot of children happy. And as he was cackling and the children reacted by laughing along, rather than stepping away from him, you had paused next to him and you had looked at him. You had properly looked and seen him. And still you complimented him.

_“The kids really love you.”_

And the horrible thing about it was, he loved the kids too. He loved to make them smile. He loved to be around them. He loved to be important to someone, to mean something in their little lives.

And now the thought chased him and haunted him like a song stuck on repeat. Because no matter what he tried to do, what chores he had in store, what questions he was asked, that same sentence had been stuck inside his head for the past twenty-four seven. It was so bad, even his mother had noticed.

“What’s wrong, Happy? Is this about a girl?” She had never made that guess and been right. Agitatedly, he grabbed a pack of cigarettes and turned away from her. He was going to smoke, though he knew that even that wouldn’t be able to take his mind off of those words.

Those words and that voice. Those eyes. That smile. _You_.

He thought you were enchanting. Although a better way of describing his feelings for you would probably be along the lines of the word 'obsessed'. He just couldn't get you off his mind. Not when he was at work, not when he was at home. Not even when he was watching TV or looking at pictures of other girls in the magazines he hid from his mother.   
  
_The Party Princess and the Hired Clown._ It sounded like a fairytale to him, too good to be true. _Hired._ Did you even know that he had been paid for it? While so many of the face characters there had worked for free. Heck, even you probably had gone there without asking a dime. Not that he had earned much. But by God, he needed the money.

Casting his mother a slanted look through narrowed eyes, he dove back inside the dark and muddled fantasies his mind offered him. In here, the apartment was all his. No annoyingly demanding mother to take care of, no more medicine to remember, no more shyness and vulnerability.

He pushed himself up off the couch and with a cigarette already lit, caught between his fingers, he made his way to the bedroom. “Call me when you wish to go to bed,” he told his mother. Penny nodded but had her attention back on the screen. But Arthur paid her no mind. He made his way into the room and let his fantasy roam free. His hand snuck into the waistband of his trousers, his fingers deftly stroking the long hard flesh underneath. And when he closed his eyes with a moan it was your face he thought of, your voice he heard, and your warmth he craved.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s after the event and the Reader discovers something wonderful online.

After the event you’d been eagerly awaiting to see the photos that had been taken there. It always gave you a certain thrill to see yourself back in costume, especially when it was one you’d been complimented on by so many people.

It hadn’t been the first time that you’d dressed as this certain princess character, but you had only a few photos as evidence of wearing it before, despite how well you had looked in it. And truth to be told, the pictures you had weren’t that great quality.

You would be lying if you’d say that part of you wasn’t _hoping_ for some miraculous fine pictures of yourself. You wanted them to flaunt with on Instagram - and whatever other site and app you owned an account on. You wanted to be able to post something pretty and professional looking. Just like many of your other cosplaying friends, who had the coolest photographs and plenty of followers online.

You wanted that too.

People who interacted with you online, who said they admired your work. But your reach was horrible lately and you felt like the photos you had simply weren’t good enough.

And _then,_ not even a day after the event, the first photos popped up, taken by a professional photographer who had been volunteering at the event. And they were _gorgeous_. _Amazing_. Full of action, showing the charitable nature of the event and the love between the entertainers and the children.

But you weren’t in any of them.

Your mouth dropped. How was this possible? You knew that you’d been photographed a dozen of times. But as you looked around the charity’s website, you noticed that the photos taken at the photobooth weren’t online yet. And the other photographers still had to upload. Heck, even the one who had already uploaded the cool stuff had said he had only uploaded a small ‘selection’ to give a ‘quick impression’ of the event.

What stung, however, was that while you weren’t among the photos, Chantal was.

It just wasn’t fair.

The picture on your screen was one of the prettiest you’d seen in ages. Chantal was smiling toothily at you in HD quality. And worse, she had uploaded it directly to her Instagram, crushing your dreams. Now everyone was gushing on _her _feed, telling _her_ how lovely _she_ was to spend her own time and expertise to bring smiles on the faces of these unfortunate children. She was lifted on digital hands, praised by people you didn’t know for being so selfless and kind. It hurt.

But you knew they were right. Even if you thought Chantal hadn’t been particularly kind to everyone, she had played her part well and she had looked remarkably like the real deal. The kids had loved her and she had loved to make them smile. Why would you feel bitter about that?

With a sigh, you scrolled one last time down the page. The preview thumbnails all looked colourful. But one in particular caught your eye. You clicked on it, waiting for it to enlarge. And there he was.

Your heart skipped a beat.

The clown, with his bright green wig cap, laughing openly while a group of children stood gathered around him, laughing along. It was by far one of the most wonderful images you had ever seen. The joy in this picture was so pure, so genuine, that you understood why the photographer had uploaded it as part of his first selection.

If a photo could win a price, this was a winner.

You studied the photo a bit longer, looking at the strange man in his oversized clothes. His make-up was getting smutched, probably by sweat. And there was an odd twinkle in his eyes. But the children, _oh,_ how they laughed along with him. You could see the adoration in their eyes.

Somehow, your hand had snuck its way up to your chest and was covering your heart. This picture had brought forth a lot of emotions, and you quickly clicked _like _on it.

Later that day, before you went to bed, you held your phone in your hand and hesitated. You really wanted to post a bit more than just a boring text in your Instagram story. Your finger hovered above your phone as you hesitated. But then you thought ‘what the heck’, and you sought for those first few pictures. You decided to upload two of them, one showing the event grounds and all the fun little stalls they had set up, the other was the one of the green-haired clown and the laughter he provided the children with. With a pleased smile, you laid down in bed and fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur tries to use the internet to find you.

“Have you seen the picture? Boss asked them to use it for commercial purposes. I think the photographer said no, but he’s going to use it anyway.”

Arthur shrugged Randall off and ignored the man’s way too cheerful voice. He was loud, and he usually had little good to say to him. But as Arthur came to a halt in the canteen, he came face to face with the ‘picture’ Randall had been going on about.

In front of him was a large printed poster, an image of children laughing at the charity event, and to the left stood a clown, bright-green hair curly and tongue visible as he roared in laughter.

Arthur’s mouth had suddenly gone dry.

“You’re looking the part for once, Carnival,” one of his colleagues said, slamming an arm just a little to hard against Arthur’s back. Arthur didn’t know how to respond but to stammer and stumble. He had to find back his footing before he could look up at the picture again. It had been plastered to the wall with tape. The quality was pixelated, probably printed way too cheap in someone’s home. But still, he felt a rush of pride course through him as he looked at the happiness on the kids’ faces.

“Wipe that grin off your face,” Randall said. “The Boss isn’t going to give you a raise just because you provided him with a pretty picture.”

No, he wasn’t. _Of course not._ Arthur knew this as well as any other. However, glancing up at the picture had brought back memories of a princess he had been trying all day to forget. And those thoughts made him smile more than the feeling of pride.

“Where did he get it?” Wow, Arthur felt his cheeks flare red at the stuttering that came out before he finally managed to form this sentence. But his fellow clowns had gotten used to his bumbling and didn’t even comment on it.

“Grabbed it off the internet page of the charity. It’s on facebook and whatsnot. There are some good pics on there of Gary as well.”

Arthur’s eyes slid to Gary who smiled at him and held up a hand as if to say ‘can’t help it’.  
  
“The charity page,” Arthur mumbled. “Of course.”

“The internet,” Randall continued, as if Arthur’s mumbling had been a sign of him not understanding. “You know? Where cool young people look stuff up?”

Arthur knew that Randall was pushing him, that his words were intended to set something off inside of him. But he merely looked at the other man and kept his mouth shut. He knew what the internet was. He just never really looked at it because it cost money. And his mother never saw use for it anyway.

“Leave it,” Gary piped in, stopping Randall from making any more comments. Randall finally let go of Arthur’s arm and went to one of the corners of the room to mind his own business. “Arthur knows what the internet is,” Gary continued with a small smirk. “It’s the place we all go to jerk off.”

He received a collective “Aye” from the other colleagues present who then started to laugh dirtily.

Arthur only managed a small smile as he retreated to the corner of the room to collect his casual clothes.

After he had changed back to his normal attire he didn’t head home straightaway as he usually did. Instead, he loitered in front of the local library for just long enough to find his courage. After almost turning away to head home, thinking it to be ridiculous to enter the library without a card, he scolded himself. He had to do this. And so he went inside.

The elderly lady behind the counter looked up briefly as he entered, but other than that he received little attention of anyone. He was surprised to see a few computers huddled together in a corner of the library hall. With his hands buried in his coat’s pockets, he leisurely made his way to them as he tried to arouse as little attention as possible. There was a tough looking bloke seated tensely behind one of them, but the others were empty.

As he came closer, expectation inside him arose. If this worked, he would see the picture of himself again. Perhaps he would see a picture of _her_.

But as he came closer to the nearest screen his spirits dropped. There were two little bars on the screen. One to browse the library’s catalogue and one to enter your card’s number and log on to use the internet. _Shit_.

His jaw felt tense as the first signs of his nervous laughter threatened to come forth. Not only did he feel disappointed, but he also felt angry that he had held hope to begin with. Damn it. _Damn it._

He gritted his teeth. The silence curses playing and replaying inside his head.

This was when the tough bloke looked up. The young man’s jaw locked and his brow furrowed. He was wearing a black hoodie, with earplugs resting on his shoulders as if he’d been listening to something before. He was the general ‘what-are-you-looking-at’ kind of juvenile who would roam the city in groups and pester those around him, working up to a moment where he would find a reason to punch them. Arthur knew the type. He was keen on avoiding them.

Quickly turning on his heels, Arthur spun around with the intent to flee before his laughter got the better of him and earned him another round of beating. But the youth behind him spoke up, ‘hey’, and Arthur could not help but freeze in his step. He was too late. The young man was probably going to scold him and then punch him. They always did.

Turning back to face the youth, Arthur hunched his shoulders, expecting the worse. His hands were still inside of his pockets, his jaw still ached with a laugh he could hardly suppress. He carefully raised a brow, trying his best to look as innocent and vulnerable as possible. _By the Gods_, he hoped this_ youngster_ wouldn’t _beat the shit_ out of him.

And he was going to, oh, he must. Arthur could see it in the way the youngster’s eyes rested upon him, could read it in the frown. And he flinched, preparing himself for the assault.

“Here ya go, old man.”

He flinched and then blinked at the outstretched hand.

“There’s still some time on it. If you’re quick you can get on for another fifteen minutes or so.”

Hesitating, Arthur took a moment to look at the receipt being offered to him. The code on it was already slightly fading. He could see that there’d been a dollar or five originally on the ticket, which clearly was bought days ago, if not weeks. But then he took it gratefully and smiled at the young man who he had misjudged.

The youngster flashed him a crooked smile. “You’re welcome,” then leered at the librarian for a moment. Perhaps he was doing this just to vex her, Arthur thought. It appeared so, as she eyed the two of them suspiciously. He decided not to comment on it and gratefully set behind one of the unoccupied computers.

He entered the code and the password, then waited for the computer screen to load. The youngster in the meanwhile had taken up his earplugs and had logged off, putting his hoodie back on and making a show of wandering past the librarian with a swagger in his step. As if he owned the place. But Arthur’s eyes were glued to his screen.

It was so bright. And what were all these icons for? What did he need to do? He hardly ever used computers. How did he work this?

Looking up at the little black bar on the top of the screen he saw his time counting down. 18 minutes left and something. Not a lot of time to figure it all out.

Luckily, Arthur wasn’t stupid. He knew a few of the basics, and within five minutes of the time he had, he had found the internet browser and had opened it to the site of the charity. A frustrated growl escaped him when he had to click on several links before he finally, finally found the right page that had the photos attached to it.

He stared at them. The very first selection.

There he was. The children smiling back at him. If only he could save the photo or print it to take it home and show his mother. How proud she would be of him.

He hurriedly looked past each and every thumbnail, searching with a sense of desperation for _her _face. But no matter how hard he wished for it and how well he looked, he could not find you.

“Figures,” he managed to say with a slight guffaw when he came across the picture of Chantal. Of course, _your friend_ was on it. But _you_ remained cleverly hidden from his sight.

In a fit of unwanted laughter, Arthur logged off. He left the library, taking the smudged ticket with him. For tonight, just the memory of you would have to make do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanting to say: There are many, MANY people who can't afford their own computer or internet access this time and day. I see them daily at my job at the local libraries. It's heartwrecking that our society likes to think all of these things are standard, when they are for many people a luxury. So this is me raising awareness to never take what you have for granted, and to look at the people around you and in your neighbourhood and see if there's anyone who needs help. I can imagine Arthur to be like that. Unable to afford it, but society likes to deny people like him exist. So this one's for you, for anyone who needs to pop in on a free WIFI signal to be able to read this. I know you exist and I hope you will be able to eat well tonight. Love you.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reader is exploring the internet and finds a nasty surprise.

When you came home from the courses you were following, the first thing you checked was the internet. Granted, you’d been looking at your phone for the past few days whenever you had a moment to spare. You just were too curious. But as the days progressed, your hunger for photos and likes grew less.

Plus, three days after the event, you finally found some very high quality pictures of yourself so you were over the moon.

Hardly anyone had looked at them or liked them, but still. When you compared yourself to the character you were supposed to be, you looked nearly identical. This was pretty good.

But back at home, six days after the event, you flipped open your laptop and sat down with a nice steaming cup. With the intention of just checking your mail, you found yourself going back to the social media page of the charity event.

The first thing you saw was the large image they had newly posted an hour or three ago and your eyes grew wide. There it was. A group picture. You smiled as you tried to identify the faces of the people you knew. There was Chantal, and next to her was you. You both looked great. Then, when you traced the face to the right, you recognised some of the other princesses. Some of them you’d befriended online and you were certain they could be new friends. And there was the superhero who was famous for looking like a certain movie star. Yet, he looked good all right. Pity you didn’t manage to get into contact with him.

You sighed as you leant backwards, your arms stretching behind your back. You could do with a boyfriend, you thought. And as your eyes slid past the many faces on the picture you mentally added ‘or girlfriend’. It didn’t matter that much to you as long as they were kind. You wanted someone you could talk with, have a laugh with, cuddle with.

Once again your eyes widened as your eyes fell upon a group of clowns. There was a really small one with a nutty hairdo, and a really big one who looked more like he should have been in the Chippendales. But there, a slight step away from the tightly banded group of clowns, was the green-haired bringer of joy.

He looked so out of place.

The image showed him in a stark contrast to the picture you’d seen of him before. Instead of the bright smile and joyful laugh, he now stood as if he were shy and not at all enjoying himself. It was as if a big shadow had fallen over him. His smile looked strained, his jaw locked. _Poor fellow,_ you thought. What has happened to him before they took this picture?

As if you couldn’t quite believe the man to be the same as the one you’d seen entertain the children, you quickly looked up that first photo of him that had been published. _Yep_. There he was. It really was him, no mistaking. The same hair, the same jaw, the same everything. But in the group picture he seemed so frail, so sad.

On this photo, however, he was shining. A bright beaming sun of joy. Just looking at the picture brought a smile to your face.

Then you noticed the emoticons underneath the images and your veins turned to ice.

There were angry faces there. Not just hearts and thumbs as you had thought there would be.

“How can anyone be mad?” You said it out loud although no one was there to hear you. You thought it might perhaps be because people disliked clowns. You’d been pretty scared of them too at one point, although you weren’t sure if you had Stephen King to blame for that or your parents.

Curiosity got the better of you and you scrolled downwards to read the comments, expecting them to be all of praise. After all, this man was doing a gorgeous thing and being gorgeous while at it. And that’s when you saw it. Someone had posted a comment underneath: “_Those Ha-Ha clowns didn’t work for free I heard. What heartless bastards go to a charity event and have themselves be paid?” _

_Such stupid logic_, you thought grimly. Lots of popstars let themselves be paid well over a ton to perform at charity gigs and people get upset over a few clowns earning meagre coins during a hospital show. How sad were these haters?

Your eyes slid down. Below the hateful comment was another: “No wonder he laughs like a mad man. He’s laughing because he’s the only one to get money out of this! ☹ ”

You felt your heart drop. This poor frail looking man was captured in a moment of pure joy, doing something good. And this was his reward?

You sat back again and ran a hand through your hair.

What had that first comment said again? Ha-Ha clowns? You leant forward and typed the name into google. The first result was that of the company’s website and so you clicked it. The page that popped up looked like a crappy cheap site made by someone with little to knowledge of building websites.

Upsetting, really, you thought. But you weren’t here to judge the skills of the webmaster. You searched for a menu, but everything seemed to have been propped on the one page. With a pang of disappointment you noted that there were no characters or actor’s names mentioned on the site. At the bottom of the page you found what you were looking for: an address. You hastily scribbled it down on a note. Perhaps you should put it in your phone for later, but you could always browse back to the site if needed. Why you scribbled the address down on a piece of paper was beyond you. But it had just felt right.

You ended up playing a silly online game till late into the night and didn’t spare the clown much thought for the rest of the week.

But he would soon be on your mind again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been tremendously ill and working each and every day, so excuse the very late and short updates. More is on the way.   
P.s. If anyone likes to draw or edit a cover for this story, or for my other tale called "The Man who Claimed To Be Yours" I'd be thoroughly thrilled.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur stumbles upon a pleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in time for Christmas!

Arthur’s life had been hell. He’d been asked to appear at parties more often due to his appearance at the charity, which was a good thing, he supposed. The bad thing was that apparently, people had started to complain about Ha-Ha having performed for money while all the other entertainers had appeared for free. And somehow, Arthur’s boss Hoyt had thought it to be a good idea to take out all of his frustration on Arthur. It was _his _photo that had gotten a lot of attention after all. And as unfair as it all felt – Arthur had never asked for that photo to be taken or to go viral – there was nothing he could do against Hoyt’s angry jibes towards him.

To top it off, Arthur had gotten no closer in finding you since the event. He had tried to look you up, had asked around if anyone had caught your name. His colleagues had laughed at him and told him to keep dreaming.

And so he did.

When Arthur got home after work, he would find you there, wearing his mother’s flower-apron and cooking a meal for the two of you. You would run your fingers down his cheeks and ask him in a whisper how his day had been. He would reply that it had been okay, better now that he was home with you, and you would smile. He would start to laugh, painfully so, and you would shush him and embrace him. You would tell him it’s okay and he would clutch your shirt in his hand. He would look up at you and then, when your eyes met, it would take his breath away. Bright eyes full of understanding would lay upon his green ones. The love he saw in them, the admiration, it was beyond anything he could have wished for. You saw him, you saw his agony, and you still wanted him. It was a feeling that set his body on fire and sent little butterflies down his abdomen. And in the end, he would lay upon the couch once his mother had gone to bed and he would pull and tug himself to completion at the thought of you.

Because as he realised with another painful laugh, you were just another _figment _of his imagination.

Yet imagining you was too addictive and he couldn’t stop. You had become a part of his life just like that, without the real you ever noticing.

You visited him on the job, told him you’d be at home waiting for him, run your hands through his hair and kiss him in public. He would grin and his colleagues would look at the two of you with their jaws dropped. _Hah, that would show them._ He could date a _pretty young _thing like _you._ For once, Arthur knew he proved the world wrong. And it felt good.

Only for his mood to be crushed by the realisation that his colleagues weren’t actually looking at him in awe, but rather with a frown of worry. Because why had he zoned out again?

_Oh, what a twist of fate_, to be so _cruel_ as to bring him to this world to bring _joy_ to others, to make him good at something that included minors, to make him crave for things with body and mind that he could never have.

Because kids, he _loved_ them. He _could_ be a good father, he was _certain_ of it. After all, he took very good care of his mother for many years. So why not of his own kids?

But up until now the only women he could imagine himself fathering children with were either fictional or entirely out of his reach – _yes, those women from those specific magazines were definitely unreachable. He knew so for certain because he had tried to contact some of them in the past to ask them to carry his baby. But their managers had all assured him that they were not interested in being the mother of his child. And so he had left it at that. _

But all of that had changed now. _The kids really love you_. Your words had reminded him not only of one of his buried deeper wishes, but seeing you and your smile, and seeing the spark of joy you lit in the eyes of the children around you, he just knew for certain that _you _were the one.

You would be perfect mother of his children.

The only issue now was how to reach you to let you know.

His anxiety was taking over more and more as days passed, because you weren’t actually there. And part of him knew that he had to remain logical and sober in his thinking. Realistically and statistically, chances of seeing you again were really rather low. Unless he somehow managed to run into you again at a next gig. _– He had, mind you, signed up for most gigs in the near future just in hopes of seeing you again, but Hoyt had taken him of several lists due to the commotion about them being paid performers at a charity event. _Another of many reasons why his life sucked.  
  
He would pinch his arm until it hurt and he left a bruise, and he would go out for a smoke while he mentally tried to convince himself that you weren’t there and his life wasn’t as full of roses as he would imagine it to be.

That’s probably why Arthur had taken to spending some of his hard earned coin at the library on internet access. His attempt at finding you never fully fading. He made it a point to visit and spend some of his time on the internet, which he clumsily explored like an elderly pensioner who had never touched the damn thing before. _Oh,_ he _knew _a _little _about computers. Enough to log on and to find the website with the pictures of the event. He even found the group picture which he, with some struggling and help from a stranger, managed to print to paper. It was probably at that point that he felt so helpless, laughing painfully when the photo was actually there in his hands, black and grey lines on white a4-paper, that he decided things had to go _differently_ from now on.

As the photographers were slow in uploading new pictures to the gallery, he found that simply sitting in the library and staring at the screen wouldn’t do. And so he sat down on some of the evenings, when the library was open till late and he got home from a gig early, and looked into some of the books in the computer section. He still didn’t have a card, but they wouldn’t chuck him out for sitting there quietly, reading. _Surely not._

The hard thing about being not that literate was that educating yourself proved to be a hard task;. Yes, he could read and write, but it cost him some difficulty and he had never really felt the need to improve his reading skills much. So naturally, reading stuff about online codes and what not had him puzzled and he quickly gave up on that. Instead, he started in the ‘for dummies’ section and looked at the pictures more than at the instructions written next to them. It saved him the coin he would otherwise need to log in on the computers whilst giving him something take his mind off things.

Eventually, after a week or two of self-indulged studying, Arthur had set himself up with a brand new email account, a twitter and a Facebook profile (though he could not find a normal picture of him to use as an icon, so he used the picture of a dog instead), and was fumbling his way around Instagram when the bright idea hit him to search for pictures of the event on there.

It was an unexpectedly good move.

There, in front of him, was his own image. The one he was so proud to be on. Him, smiling, dressed as Carnival, children gathered around him. And when he clicked on the image of himself, he was linked through to someone’s profile page. Someone he instantly recognised.

_You._

Finally he had found you.

There wasn’t much he could do on Instagram when he accessed it via the computer. But he could save your profile so he would never have to search for it again. It was simple really, a click of the mouse on the blue “follow” button and you were there, in his list. _An agony_, really, that he would have to go to this public place in order to look at you online. Perhaps if he scrambled enough coin together he could buy himself a cheap smartphone and access the account from there. It was a thing he had thought of before but hadn’t felt the need to. Not until now.

Pictures of you, mostly in costume, mostly on the job, filled his screen. You looked so happy in many of them, and gorgeous in all. He could not help but smile fondly at the sight of you. Here you were. His eyes instantly flitted up to look for your name. The username you took made him raise a brow, but your name was instantly burned into his mind with a vow never to forget your name ever again.

All these pretty images of you…… Arthur’s eyes drifted to the image featuring himself as a clown. It seemed oddly out of place. Why had you not uploaded a picture of your princess self that day? Confusion overtook him and he stared blankly at the screen. Why of all the people in the world had you decided to upload the image of him on your Instagram account? Why?

Unless….. _Unless _it was_ fate_.

Arthur’s lips parted in an unstoppable smile. Soft chuckles escaped him, not loud enough to alarm the librarian. He shook his head, his brown hair tangling next to his cheeks, dancing along with the movement. And then he closed his eyes, relishing in his newfound thoughts.

_You wanted him._

You _must._ Wasn’t it easy to see? You uploaded a picture of _him_ to your account, when you had a choice of many others, when you could have uploaded your Cinderella friend. But **no,** you chose him. And to Arthur, this proved more than anything that you had felt the same attraction towards him, that your body must be craving his as much as he craves you. That you’d be willingly won over the moment you two would meet again.

And meet you he would. He would make_ sure_ of it.

Laughing, he shoved away from the computer. His time had run out and the machine was already in lockdown. But he wasn’t feeling very sorry about it. Stifling his laughter, he made his way outside before he stopped any of his attempts to keep the laughter in, laughing out loudly for everyone to hear until tears streamed down his face.

He had found the first breadcrumb that would lead to you. And it would be enough to ensure that the two of you would meet again. He was going to make you his, and you were in for a treat.


End file.
